Where reality bends to Wholeness

Tag Archives: Empathy

The second of the seven hearts is commonly called the sacral. In Sanskrit it is Svadisthana. This is the orange watery heart. The sacral governs our sexual fluids, which are the source of our personal light, vitality, creativity, and empathy. It also governs our blood, lymph, and cerebrospinal fluid. This space links us with the people of Water and the emotional realms of empathic cleansing and connection. This is where we begin to differentiate from the ancestral group-mind and make links with others through energetic bonds. We learn the arts of connection, empathy, and cleansing. This heart pulses with all our inner waters (and recall we are 80% water). Water is the messenger molecule of the body and it carries emotional imprints through the entire system.3 The sacral connects with the endocrine system at the gonads, which regulates sex hormones, and with the sacral nerve plexus, which innervates the repro- ductive system and the genitourinary system, which literally cleanses our watery waste out of the body through urination.

Today I bless my inner waters and dip myself in the cleansing seas of our Mother…

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.” – William Blake

To maintain our energetic integrity we must remain aware of our personal light. This means that we must be strong and consistent in our personal cleansing practices. Practical day to day living puts us in contact with myriad contaminants physical and energetic. Therefore it is important we leave space in our lives to cleanse those poisons away and maintain the unique flavor of our own light distilled. Cleansing removes the energetic scent of others and rids us of most attachments. It is most important that particularly sensitive people, energy workers, and anyone who works closely with others take their cleansing practices very seriously. How we choose to cleanse is personal, but there are a number of tradi- tional practices that many have found useful for hundreds to thousands of years.

The best and most powerful forms of cleansing are those which take us into the natural world. A dip in the salty waters of mother ocean or communion within the hollowed out trunk of an ancient redwood cleanses, purifies, and protects more effectively than anything else we could possibly imagine. Soaking in the light of the full moon is perhaps the most potent cleanse I know. The cleansing practices suggested below echo the power of the great natural cleanses to engage us on an elemental level. We are elemental beings made of bone, water, heat, and mist. Earth, water, fire, and air. When we cleanse we commune with these elemental forces, clearing away the residue of “civilized” living to remind ourselves of our wild and dynamic power within the All.

Empathy is artful connection between individuals. Artful implies there is a talent and a precision to it. It means that empathy is not some willy-nilly thing that just happens to us. Empathy clearly is a choice. Empathy is the art of when and how we bond with others. When we let down our barriers (and we all have barriers) then we can share a space with others. This space is the empathic connecting point. This is where You and I share space between us. This is where magic between beings happen. This is where true linking and communication is possible. This is where we share dreamscapes and healing touches with individuals within the group heart.

Empathy, in its pure state, is feeling for & with others through our connections in the Green heart. This is a beautiful, beautiful gift. It allows us to literally feel along with those around us. It allows us to keep our spaces honest and clear without the emotional murkiness that can so often underlay human to human interactions.

Empathy is NOT about suffering. Now in some metaphysical thought empathy and empathic healing are lauded as a virtue and as a sacrifice. Healers who are too empathic are thought to become porous and take on their guests pain/disease and often are said to die young because of it. It used to be said that many healers have extra weight because they are protecting themselves from those they heal. This has to do with the healer as martyr idea and the wounded healer archetype.

This is because pain has in many ways become a virtue to us. We suffer for others and think it is nobility when really it is simply accumulated suffering. Snow-ball of ick. It is not virtue to suffer needlessly. It is stupid.

There is a place for suffering in this world (of course) and it is something we must all do to

1) generate enough experience to push us out of self-limiting mind loops both personal and cultural or

2) find a heart-space in which we offer up ourselves to Divine Service

3) some rare (and blessed) individuals choose to suffer on the behalf of others but this is a whole different arrangement

So suffering has its higher good, of course. But to suffer needlessly is to keep ourselves locked in darkness and truly is lazy. Repeat. Needless suffering, whether on one’s own behalf or the behalf of another, is lazy. Needless suffering becomes self-fulfilling and delays our growth keeping us in a state of sloth and emotional junk.

So when we are in a place of emotional suffering ask if it is needless or needful. Is it pushing us towards greater Service or is it keeping us locked in our own melodramas? This is a simple question that when answered honestly and sometimes brutally will cut through many of our mind-loops.

When you recognize the suffering is needless then

1) Stop flogging yourself

2) Step out of judgment completely

3) Have a good cleanse, cry, or smudge

4) Drink a big glass of blessed water remembering that our internal waters must be kept cleansed or we hold too much junk.

Today I choose not to engage in needless suffering and observe what changes around and within me.